Non-PC GeeksWe tell it like it is: rants and raves on the latest PC hardware.
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Well, the geeks day job recently got moved to a new office where we’re now part of a cube farm rather than the individual offices that we had before. Let me tell you, it’s a BIG change, especially when you work with some rather loud people who don’t get that working in cubicles is like being in a library. As a result, we needed something to block or drown out the noise.
So, we’ve been living with the ATX motherboard specification for what? 10? 12 years now? This specification lays out things like size of the board, placement and size of the slots, the power supply connection and ratings and such to the motherboard, location of the screw down mounts and so forth. The one thing that they did not standardize though is the connections for all the various front panel hookups.
So, you have this huge irreplaceable collection of digital photos of your kids, video of their first steps, tons of MP3s, that Great American Novel you’ve been working on since you were in college and it’s all sitting on your hard drive with no backup. According to this article that data isn’t as safe as the manufacturers claim. What’s an intrepid photography nut or music guru to do?
According to this article CompUSA is planning to close more than half of their stores in the next 60-90 days. They’re citing increasingly shrinking margins on flat panel TV’s and monitors as one of the various reasons why their stores have been losing money.
Personally, I haven’t set foot in a CompUSA in over 2 years, even though there is one only 1.5 miles from my house. 10 years ago, I was a CompUSA addict, in there all the time, spending money, browsing nearly weekly. It was part of my Sunday morning ritual to get up and hit CompUSA, Circuit City and Best Buy and see what they had on sale that week. Over the past 4 years though, with the opening of a MicroCenter and (more importantly) a Fry’s Electronics, and my increasing use of Newegg for online purchases I haven’t seen much of a need to go to CompUSA. (All of those stores are within 4 miles of my home.)
No, what doomed CompUSA was the ever increasing reliance upon Mail in Rebates (MIR) as their “sale” mechanism. Their product selection was so-so, their salespeople were rarely knowledgeable (although better than Best Buy usually) and I got tired of the MIRs. So I stopped shopping there…. And apparently so have a lot of other people. I heard that they started to move away from that policy and started having more of a normal sale item structure but I guess it was too late. The last time I did set foot in the local CompUSA it was loaded with a LCD+Plasma TV section (sorry, but I don’t think I’d be buying home entertainment electronics there of all places), and most of the products I found were insanely overpriced. The one thing I did see that I found interesting was that they were starting to stock more PC modding parts, exotic cooling systems, that sort of thing. Even then, they didn’t carry the more high-end parts.
As far as I’m concerned, good riddance! I’m much happier shopping at Fry’s (fantastic selection and pretty good prices on most stuff) or Best Buy, and I occationally hit MicroCenter when they have something good on sale.
Rule #1 - Don’t screw your customers and nickel and dime them to death to turn a profit if you want them to come back and keep shopping with you!
Computer gaming has come a long way over the last 3 decades. We’ve seen the evolution from dedicated game consoles such as the original Atari 2600, to the 8 bit computer craze of the 1980’s and then back to consoles. This pendulum has swung back and forth over and over, and each time some group of “experts” declares that PC gaming is dead and consoles will be the way forward. And each time a few short years later we see PC’s once again regain the crown. This latest round of console releases once again has people stating that PC gaming is about to die. Are they right? Well, maybe. What is different this time around is the economics of the game industry.
In the early morning hours of Wednesday, team AVSim was making it’s final push. We had finished our final requirements, and just needed to make our way from Cork, Ireland down to the Canaries and then complete a quick dash to each of the islands before finishing in Grand Canaria. SimOutHouse’s team decided to try to make some time up after their disasterous tran-Atlantic crossing attempts (it took them 3 tries!) by going for the two bonus airports in Norway. AVSim hadn’t bothered with those bonus airports because it would take almost as long to get to them as we’d pick up by visiting them.
No, the real competition at this point would be from FlightSim.com. We intensively checked their forums to get an update on their position. As we arrived in the Canaries, one of our team members started calculating how far behind us they were. It was looking like they’d arrive in the Canaries about 5 hours after we did, but they had 6 hours of bonus time on us. The run through the Canaries would give us up to 3 hours bonus time, but it would take some time to perform. We guestimated that it would take a little over an hour to fly all the hops. In reality, it took closer to 2 hours. So, we clawed back 1.5 hours, putting us 30 minutes ahead of FlightSim.com and forcing them to have to run the bonus run as well.
As we got to the final hop in the Canary run, all of the AVSim team members that were available hopped online, jumped in P-51 Mustangs or P-38 Lightenings and off we went. It was a glorious sight lining up on a runway with 10 warbirds in various paint schemes. We flew most of the hop in formation, with some members splitting off to show off their aerobatic skills before joining back up for the landing. Our race finished at 10:38am EDT - 4 days, 38 minutes after we started. All we could do is wait and watch to see what FlightSim.com would do. If they had a crash or maybe a pair of baton handoffs, it would spell disaster for them.
Alas, they managed to make it in and finish safely. Once all the bonus time was tallied up, FlightSim.com was declared the winner, finishing 49 minutes ahead of AVSim.com. This is the closest finish the race has had to date, and all of the teams should be very proud of their achievement. The level of airmanship, professionalism, and friendship exihibited by all the teams was second to none. It was also extremely rewarding to share a hobby that tends to be very unfocused with such a dedicated group of individuals.
Here’s some photos from the race…
I can’t wait for next year!
